The Compelling Power of a Noble Purpose

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"For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil." (1 John 3:8)

There have been many great men and women throughout history, each shaping their world in significant ways that have lasted well beyond their time. In each and every one has been the indisputable presence of vision, passion, discipline and risk. There was no mountain too high, no valley too low, no ocean too wide, and no challenge too great to withstand the prevailing effects of vision, passion, discipline and risk at work in each of their lives. Such is the compelling power of a noble purpose.

Of all the amazing figures who have passed through the Gates of Time into the Grand Hallway of human history, none is more singular and unsurpassed than Jesus of Nazareth, who is called Christ, the Son of the Living God.

Like all the others, Jesus was mission-focused. He said, “For the Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). Everything about Him — His teaching, His miracles, and His death — everything served this one purpose. John the Beloved, Jesus' best friend, wrote, "for this purpose the Son of God was manifested -- that He might destroy the works of the devil."

Jesus had a clear and compelling vision, evident even in His childhood. “I must be about My Father’s business,” he said at the young age of twelve. His passion, ever ablaze in His sermons and always abundant in His miracles, carried Him all the way to the old rugged Cross. His discipline, which He cultivated in the dry depths of solitude and expressed in the flood-tides of uncompromising devotion, sustained Him through the agony of death. And there, on a hill far away, He risked absolutely everything just to save you and me.

Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote, “We succeed in life as in war, only as we are able to identify a single, over-riding objective and then bend all other considerations to that one thing.” May I ask, what is the “one thing” to which you bend all other considerations in your life? What is the noble purpose which gives compelling power to the life your now live?

What would your friends say it is?
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